The band plays all night long!! The
fairgrounds
finally get quiet around 6:30 AM, and
I sleep
soundly for about an hour or so, then
drag
myself out of my tent.

I head over to the area where the food
was,
there's a group of people sitting around
talking quietly. Figuring that it would
be
polite to say goodbye and thanks for
the
fun times, that's what I'm attempting
to
do when I realize that these are some
enthusiastic
party-goers..! They aren't early risers,
they haven't went to bed or quit drinking
- I finally manage to get away, while
they
slur and mumble about all kinds of
things
that I donít quite follow.

I pack up and head over to the local
truck
stop near I-94 for breakfast. While
there,
one of the custom Harley guys and the
Gold
Wing guy show up. We all sit together,
and
talk.

"Bob", the Harley rider,
the stereotype
Harley rider, is pretty much bald on
top,
but has quite a bit of hair around
the sides
of his head. And it's looong hair.
But what's
really funny is that on the back of
his head
he has two eyeballs tattooed, just
above
his receding hairline. The effect is
like
looking at a bearded smurf when you
look
at him from behind, and it cracks me
up......!

But what's really fun is when a mom and child
enter the truck stop, and this happens several
times, and with the child invariably saying
"Look, mom! That man has eyes in the
back of his head!!!" and the mom invariably
saying "Shhhhh, Tommy; don't point,
shhhhhhh!!!!" and ushering the child past Harley
Bob.

And each time this happens, Harley
Bob has
a bemused grin on his face as he watches
mom and child out the corner of his
eye;
I'm not sure, but I think he enjoys
the shock
value.

We talk about many things, and I remember
little (due to exhaustion, I realize
now)
other than that at one point we talked
about
noise. I end up giving Harley Bob a
(new)
spare set of earplugs that I have in
my tank
bag before I leave.

Then I'm eastbound on I-94 . Not sure
how
far I'll go or where I'll stop, but
I'm heading
home now.

I'm really tired. And it's so hot out,
the
heat just makes the fatigue worse....

I cross into North Dakota, and stop
at the
first roadside rest to get a drink
and to
use the restroom. Ah, it's so nice
and cool
inside the rest plaza - but I'm still
tired.

And when I come out of the restroom,
the
first thing I see is the entire underside
of my perfect (though mud-splattered)
R1100rs......
I can see the oil filter, the drain
plug,
the finning on the underside of the
sump.....
my horizontally opposed twin is now
a vertically
opposed twin...

Damn! I get all this ways without putting a scratch
on the bike, and now thinking that the worst
is over the stupid thing falls over in a
parking lot. Aaaarrgh!

There's a man and a little boy standing
not
too far away, so I ask them if they
saw what
happened - they say it just fell over
all
by itself. The man helps me lift it
up, and
it's instantly obvious what happened.
The
sidestand sank into the hot asphalt.
Shoot!
The bike itself is only mildly damaged,
with
some of the white base coat visible
in the
scratches on the fairing and saddlebags,
and a little smooshing of the silver
paint
on the left valve cover. Mostly, the
cylinder
head protectors and the saddlebag guards
did their job.

I think about this for a minute, about the
bike falling down.... I've ridden a quarter
million miles so far in my life, and lived
3.5 years in Phoenix. I know better than
this, how could I be so stupid? I have a little plastic foot in my tank
bag's left pocket for situations like this,
and I never even thought about it...

I take this as a sign that I'm too tired,
and decide to get a motel pretty soon. Before
I do something really, really stupid. I'm
just so tired.....

And so by 3:00 that afternoon, exhausted
after a measly 200 miles, I'm checked into
a very nice, air-conditioned room in a hotel
in Bismarck, North Dakota for around $30.
By 3:30, I'm sound asleep with the air conditioner
cranked up.

I sleep until 11:30 PM, when I get
up, read
some business related paperwork that
I've
carried all the way across the continent
and back, and watch Star Trek; before
going
to sleep for the night in a nice room
between
clean cool sheets.